Story+1984-11-29+Houston,+TX

“Thanks, this is, uh…this is a song about, uh…blind faith…(starts the harmonica intro)…and, uh, and it’s tragic results (continues playing the harmonica)…’cause everybody’s waited for something…waited for somebody that wasn’t ever coming back…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Reason to Believe”**

“Yeah, alright…Houston (crowd cheers) long time no see (crowd cheers)…this is a song…when I was a kid, there used to be this house, used to sit outside, outside of town on this big hill…and uh… it was kind of one of those places, like, you couldn’t tell if it was a house or a public library or something (chuckles) I remember at night, my dad used to, used to sit in the kitchen, just smoke a cigarette, and my mom used to sit in front room with the television on, watching TV till she fell asleep…she used to have her hair, her hair rolled up in those pink curlers…and, uh, sometimes late at night my dad’d ask me if I’d wanna take a ride, he’d put me in the car, we’d drive through town outside of (crowd cheers) till we’d get on this side road that used to kind of sit, sit just underneath this house…and he’d sit there and roll the window down, smoke a cigarette, never used to talk too much…but, uh, anyway…the factories close down but the mansion on the hill remains…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Mansion on the Hill”**

“Now, this song, this is a song about…kind of the fleetingness of love, you know…anybody out on the first date tonight?...no, everybody’s known each for a long time, then you know what I’m talking about (chuckles) if you’re out on that first date…the person you’re with is probably not, not as nice as they’re acting (chuckles) (laughs from the crowd)(?) you know how it is when you first meet somebody, you know, it’s like you meet them and, like, you’re spending time in front of the time, you get all dressed up all right and everything that they wear, like, they’re beautiful and everything they say is so intelligent…you know, if you’re gonna go out to the movies or something, it’s like “What movie do you wanna go see?” “Oh, I don’t care, Honey, whatever movie you wanna go see” (crowd cheers) it’s like “You wanna go out tonight?” “Oh, Honey, I don’t care what we do just as long as I’m with you” (crowd cheers) you know, and like you’re making love with them all the time, you know, two, three, four times a day (crowd cheers) even if you go over to their folks’ house, their folks go out of the room and you’re fooling around…but then you come back about six months later…you know, it’s like “Are we gonna make love tonight or are we gonna have to wait for the full moon to come around?” (crowd cheers) you know…why does that always happen? (chuckles) anyway…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “I’m Goin’ Down”**

“Ready for a little road trip? (crowd cheers)…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Darlington County”**

“[After the sing-along](?)…this is a song that’s about ancient history (crowd cheers) do we have any history majors out there? (crowd cheers) that’s good…now, I’m not talking about the Mesopotamians…I’m not talking about the Trojans or the Greeks or the Italians…I’m talking about personal stuff…the kind of stuff that, that you’re gonna read in the National Enquirer after I die (crowd cheers) or if I ever get married and then get divorced, you’re gonna read it while I’m still living (crowd cheers) this is about, like, when I was a kid, I was interested in three things…like my father and my grandfather played pool all the time so I tried to become a pool player…then I was interested in the guitar (crowd cheers) and then the third thing…(crowd cheers) you know, that one, that one (crowd cheers) but like one Christmastime my mother bought me a pool table at Sears for 69.95 and like we tied it to the roof of the car and we brought it home and I was holding on to it and then like my father wouldn’t let me have it downstairs so like I put it up in my bedroom and it just fit in so like I used to bring my girlfriends over and I’d say “Dad, we’re gonna go up to my room and play pool for a while” (crowd cheers)(?) but like he was real tricky because he used to sit in the kitchen and it was right underneath my bedroom and if he didn’t hear the pool balls knocking around or if he didn’t hear the guitar playing, he had this broom stick that he used to bang on the ceiling (crowd cheers) but like I used to trick him because I used to pull the pool table like real, like real close to the bed and then every once in a while I would lean up and knock the balls around a little bit (crowd cheers)(?) anyway, I matured and (?)…I gave up pool and of the other two, the only one I really became proficient at was the guitar (crowd cheers) but the third one…I’m still looking for some volunteers that wanna practise, practise, practise (crowd cheers) I’m gonna get it down just right this year, I made up my mind…get it perfect (snickers) but anyway, in the end all things must pass…is there anybody that’s over thirty out there tonight? (crowd cheers) it ain’t nothing but glory days (crowd cheers) go ahead, boys, here we go…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Glory Days”**

“Oh, yes, yes it is…damn, alright, alright, wait a minute now, here we go…no matter how old you get, you gotta keep looking for that Promised Land…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “The Promised Land”**

“Thanks (crowd cheers) this…this is a song…I always remember…I remember the first time we…we came down here to Houston, we (crowd cheers) me and the band, we all decided we would never fly again, we had a couple of bad airplane flights so we took the train down here from New York (chuckles) (crowd cheers) whoa, what a ride (chuckles) but, uh, I always remember getting off and being met by this guy Roberto who took me to this place, Liberty Hall (crowd cheers)(chuckles) and the first time we came down here people really greeted us with open arms and, uh (crowd cheers) ‘cause we didn’t, we’d like hardly ever been out of New Jersey, we didn’t know what to expect, you know, we (chuckles) we, we said “These cowboys are gonna kill us down here!” (chuckles) but everybody (chuckles) everybody really, uh, just showed us tremendous support right in the early beginning, the early days of our careers (crowd cheers) and uh…this has been a good town and …tonight there’s gonna be some people out in the lobby that are trying to make this town an even better place and they’re people that are from the Houston Foodbank and I know there’s been a lot of hard times down here because of the decline in the oil prices and because of the oil block, I know there’s been a lot of lay-offs, there’s been plant closing, the Texaco plant and the Aramco plant, there’s people getting put out of work, laid off, and, uh, Houston Foodbank, what they do is every year twenty percent of the food that gets produced in America just gets wasted and thrown away and so what a foodbank does is they help get that food and get it to the people that, that need it, the people that are old people and young people that are suffering on hard times (crowd cheers) and really the only, the only help and support they get is from you, they don’t get any government funding and, uh, since 1980 there’s been a thousand percent increase in the demand, in the demand for food down here and so I guess what it is is Houston Foodbank is about Texans helping Texans (crowd cheers) they’re trying, they’re trying to make this place a better and a more decent place to live so they’ll be out there, if you can, they need just basic things, they need some volunteers, they need some support, they need some money and in the end this…these things sometimes seem like they happen long ways away but they’re happening right here in your hometown (crowd cheers)…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “My Hometown”**

“Thanks…oh, thank you, we’re…we’re gonna take a short break so don’t tire yourself out ‘cause we’re just getting going (crowd cheers) if you can (the rest is missing from the tape)…
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, after “Thunder Road”**

“Sometimes I feel…I just feel so lonely…and I get so downhearted… and that’s when I need a little help…and I just wanna reach out…to somebody somewhere…and say…”Hey there, Baby,” come on, Sugar…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, towards the end of “Dancing in the Dark”**

“All in the day’s work! (crowd cheers)…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, after “Dancing in the Dark”**

“Everybody’s got one (the song comes to its end) are you hungry? (crowd cheers)…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, at the end of “Hungry Heart”**

“I’m a roadrunner, Baby!...”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Cadillac Ranch”**

“Now bring it down, boys…now, this is a song about the conflict... between worldly things and spiritual health...between desires of the flesh (crowd cheers) and spiritual ecstasy...now, where did this conflict begin?...well, it began in the beginning in a place called the Garden of Eden…now the Garden of Eden was originally believed to have been located in Mesopotamia...but the latest theological studies have found out that its actual location was ten miles south of Jersey City, off the New Jersey Turnpike (crowd cheers) now that’s why they call it the Garden State (crowd cheers) now understand in the Garden of Eden, there were none of the accoutrements of modern living…they didn’t have no houses, no little bed you could crawl up into, you couldn’t go home at night and take your little Pop-Tarts and put them in the toaster and then jump in bed and watch Johnny Carson…you couldn’t out on to the highway and buy a cheeseburger if you wanted one...no Sir!...in the Garden of Eden there was no sin...there was no sex (crowd boos) man lived in a state of innocence...well, now, when it comes to no sex, I prefer the state of guilt that I constantly live in (crowd cheers) but before the tour started I decided to make a spiritual journey to the location of the Garden of Eden to find out the answer to some of these mysteries, why my body pulls me one way and why my soul pulls me the other...so I went, I went to that spot and it was now occupied by Happy Dan’s Celebrity Used Car Lot...I walked in, the man said to me “Son, you need a yellow convertible, a four-door DeVille with a Continental spare, wide chrome wheels, air-conditioning, automatic heat, a full fold-out bed in your backseat, eight-track tape-deck, TV and a phone so you can speak to your baby when you’re driving all alone” (crowd cheers) I said “I’ll take two”...but then I said “But Dan, that’s not really the reason I came, what I wanna know is, I want the answer to why I feel so much conflict all the time, what, what’s all this temptation about, why we’re always being torn apart, he said “Son, that’s easy because right here on these ten beautiful industrially-zoned acres was the sweetest little paradise that man has ever seen, in the Garden of Eden there were many wondrous things: there was a Tree of Life, there was a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, there was a man, Adam, there was a woman, Eve, and she was so fine... and when Adam kissed her, Son, it was the first time, that a man had ever kissed a woman...and she had long, thin legs (crowd cheers) and when Adam touched her…it was the first time that a man had ever touched a woman (crowd cheers) and then they lay down in the green grass...and when Adam...well, Son, it was the first time (crowd cheers) but there was something else in the Garden of Eden on that day, old Satan came slithering up on his belly and somehow he turned their love into a betrayal and sent them running down into the darkness below...but…if you’ve got the nerve to ride, for ninety-nine ninety-five on this back lot, Son (crowd cheers) I’ve got the keys to their getaway car…and if you think you can take it…step on in to the first....pink....Cadillac...”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Pink Cadillac”**

“I remember…it was by some strip down by the river where I first, that we met…(?)…and, uh, we used to sleep out on underneath these cottonwood trees when, when we didn’t feel like going home…and when we first went out, like, it was…we were laughing all the time, always having fun (?)…but then it got…it got to where the things that made her happy once just didn’t seem to make her happy any more…I don’t know if we were just getting older or if we’d been together too long…but I was spending most of my time trying to find some way to make her happy again…she got to where she wanted to stay home all the time and she’d hide my keys at night so that I couldn’t go out…and, uh…it got hard to make her understand…that when I took the car out…and when I won, it was the only time that I ever really, really felt good about myself…and that to have just one thing…one thing in your life that makes you feel proud of yourself…well, I don’t think, I don’t think that’s too much for anybody to ask – is it?... (…) Well, that was the night…I remember that was the night that we left…we still don’t know where we’re going yet but I guess that’ll come in time…but sometimes it seemed like, like time starts running so short on you…it just keeps running shorter…there’s not much you can do but, but to just keep on going…and keep on searching…keep on going…just keep on going…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Racing in the Street”**

“Alright, for all the old-timers out there…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Jungleland”**

“I’d like to just take a minute and thank everybody for coming down to the show here tonight, thank you (crowd cheers) I’d like to thank you for the support of the Houston Foodbank (crowd cheers) they’re some people out there trying to do something…in the end I guess the best that rock’n’roll at best always found, always found its power and its spirit in the community, you know, it’s not something you can do by yourself…it’s a lonely planet and nobody wins unless everybody wins…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Born to Run”**

“Alright, in the traveling band we got Roy Bittan on the piano (crowd cheers) Garry Tallent on the bass guitar (crowd cheers) Patti Scialfa on the vocals (crowd cheers) Mighty Max Weinberg on the drums (crowd cheers) Phantom Dan Federici on the organ (crowd cheers) Mr. Nils Lofgren on the guitar (crowd cheers) and the king of the world…the master of all things…on the saxophone, the Big Man, Clarence Clemons (crowd cheers)…oh, let’s check that map now…(?)…Lincoln Nebraska…Ames, Iowa…Kansas City…St. Louis…Phoenix, Arizona…Denver, Colorado…going down into Texas (crowd cheers) into Austin…Dallas…until we hit Houston (crowd cheers) now are you folks ready to join the travelling band? (crowd cheers) you gotta go home and pack you bags…you gotta kiss your baby goodbye…you gotta quit your job (crowd cheers) you gotta quit school (crowd cheers) you gotta say goodbye to your sweetheart and your mama…are you ready to go? (crowd cheers) are you ready to go? (crowd cheers) are you ready to go? (crowd cheers) are you ready to go? (crowd cheers) are you ready to go? (crowd cheers) let’s go…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, middle of “Detroit Medley”**

“Are you whipped yet? (crowd: “No”) you must be getting tired now (crowd: “No”) I hope not because I’m just about getting my second wind about now (crowd cheers) come on, boys!… (…) Ah, yeah, now…this is the best part of the night right here (crowd cheers) I can see who’s been watching me all night, their faces…just getting my moves going correct about now…how’s everybody way up back there on the hill? (crowd cheers) are you alive back there? (crowd cheers) are you getting enough oxygen up there? (crowd cheers) alright…now how’s all the bums in the bleacher seats? (crowd cheers) aah, looking good now! (crowd cheers) now…now there’s just one thing that I gotta know before I go…I mean I can’t leave without the answer to this question…I can’t sleep at night, I toss and turn…what I wanna know is…is…is…do you love me? (crowd cheers)…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, intro to “Twist and Shout”**

“Here he comes now…stacking up all of them toys in that Cadillac sled…starting her up, coming over the North Pole…coming over New Jersey (crowd cheers) flying down to Texas (crowd cheers) flying over Houston (crowd cheers) has everybody been good? (crowd cheers) all year long? (crowd cheers) are you sure now? (crowd cheers) alright, here he comes, come on, boys and girls…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, middle of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”**

“(Clarence: “Merry Christmas, Houston, Merry Christmas”) Merry Christmas, happy New Year…happy birthday…happy the rest of your life (crowd cheers) thanks, we love you (crowd cheers)…”
 * 29.11.84 Houston, TX, after “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//